על הגירת אברהם כ״טOn the Migration of Abraham 29
א׳
1[158] While some regard this rough and motley type as outcast, and keep it at a distance from themselves, having delight in the God-beloved kind only, others actually form ties of fellowship with it, holding that their own place in human life should be midway, set as a borderland between virtues human and Divine, and thus they aim at being in touch with both the real and the reputed virtues.
ב׳
2[159] To this school belongs the politician’s frame of mind, to which it is customary to give the name “Joseph.” When he is about to bury his father there go off with him “all the servants of Pharaoh and the elders of his house and all the elders of Egypt and all his whole household, Joseph and his brethren and all his father’s house” (Gen. 50:7 f.).
ג׳
3[160] Do you notice that this politician takes his position in the midst between the house of Pharaoh and his father’s house? that his object is to be equally in touch with the concerns of the body, which is Egypt, and those of the soul which are kept as in a treasury in his father’s house? For when he says “I belong to God” (Gen. 50:19) and other things of this kind, he is abiding by the customs of his father’s house. But when he mounts “the second chariot” of the mind that fancies itself a king, even Pharaoh (Gen. 41:43), he again sets up the idol of Egyptian vanity.
ד׳
4[161] Though indeed more wretched than he is the king who is thought to be more glorious, who rides in the principal chariot: for to win distinction in things that are without moral beauty is a most patent disgrace, just as to carry off the second prize in such things is a less weighty evil.
ה׳
5[162] Of his proneness to face both ways you may get an idea from the oaths which he is represented as taking, at one moment swearing “yea by the health of Pharaoh” (Gen. 42:16) and then on the contrary, “no, by the health of Pharaoh” (Gen. 42:15). The oath containing the negative is one that his father’s house would prescribe, being always a mortal foe to passion and wishing it dead; the other oath is one that Egypt might prescribe, for passion’s welfare is dear to it.
ו׳
6[163] It is for all these reasons that, though so great a number went up with Joseph, Moses does not call them a mixed multitude; for whereas in the view of the man whose vision is quite perfect and who is a lover of virtue, all that is not virtue and virtue’s doing seems to be mixed up and to be in confusion, in the eyes of the man who still cherishes low aims earth’s prizes are deemed to be in themselves worthy of love and worthy of honour.